The present invention includes methods and apparatus for making fresh water from salt water. The inventor's innovative desalination system generates a controlled, wind-powered vortex of air in a tower located over a supply of salt water. The spinning column of air creates a region of negative pressure over the salt water which causes fresh water to cavitate and migrate up the tower to a fresh water collector.
Each year sources of pure drinking water become more scarce while the demand for these water supplies increases. Many areas of the United States have experienced extreme drought conditions in the past decade. Utilities usually measure water delivered for large-scale agricultural or industrial use in units called "acre-feet." An acre-foot is equivalent to the volume of water that would be required to cover one acre of flat land with a foot of water. This amount of water equals 325,800 gallons, or roughly a year's supply of water for a family of five. As traditional sources such as lakes, rivers, and wells are depleted, utilities have begun to investigate and to consider the desalination of sea water as a solution to this severe problem. Conventional desalination operations are extremely expensive. Several attempts to solve this problem, including evaporation and reverse osmosis systems, have achieved only modest success. None of the conventional systems provides an inexpensive yet effective means for producing potable water from salt water.
The shortcomings of previous water purification processes and devices has presented a major challenge to engineers and scientists. The development of a highly reliable yet cost-effective system that purifies ocean water for large-scale consumption would constitute a major technological advance. The new sources of fresh water that could be developed using such an innovative device would satisfy a long felt need and would help to avert a potential crisis faced by residents of a large portion of the United States.